After washing off the travel dirt of the previous day, Hesther and I had breakfast in the impossibly fancy dining room - impossibly fancy for a three star hotel! And the price fit the appearance; 10.95 Euros for a full continental breakfast! I.e. a buffet with all the regular breakfast foods. Luckily, we only had to pay the 95 cents - Mrs Maciver had given us 10 Euros for it the night before, as it was some money left over of what we had already paid. And it was delicious.

The group was supposed to meet in the foyer at about 11 a.m. (if my memory serves me), and while we were waiting for everyone to come down, we came up with all kinds of ridiculous and believable stories Mrs Maciver could tell Mrs Westerman, one of the depute heads, calling her up really really late and make her worry. Ideas that were aired were for example that Michael Chessum had joined the IRA and/or was distributing pamphlets for Sinn Fein - totally believable as Chessum is known for his political thought; we had been kicked out of the hotel because Douglas and Duncan trashed and/or set their room on fire; a part of the group had wandered off to go binge-drinking and got completely lost somewhere in Dublin; the flight had been cancelled and we'd be forced to stay in Dublin for an indefinite amount of time. There were many more hilarious ideas, but sadly I don't remember all of them. Unfortunately, Mrs Maciver forgot about it and did not end up phoning Mrs Westerman in the middle of the night to lie to her! It surely would have been a laugh, that's for sure.

On our agenda for Sunday was to visit the Dublin Writers Museum. On the way there, a few of us almost got separated with the rest of the group. We, of course, took a bus from the hotel, and as the bus was crowded, we went and sat on the second storey (most of the Dublin buses are double-deckers). However, we didn't actually pay much attention to where we were, and had actually no idea where we'd be getting off. So I certainly panicked when I looked out the window (I sat in the window seat facing the sidewalk) while the bus had stopped for an unusually long time, and saw everyone on the pavement waving and shouting. Oops. I exclaimed "SHIT, we have to get out!" And we hurried out as fast as we could, and just as we were getting out of our seats, Mrs Maciver came up the stairs and yelled "JAMES GILLESPIE'S, COME ON!!!" It was incredibly embarrassing. I made a point of not looking at any of the other passengers, and barely audibly muttered my usual "cheers" to the bus driver as I stepped off. People were both annoyed and laughed at us. Possibly the most embarrassing moment of my life for a while! Well, aside from events that shall remain unspoken.

But I didn't dwell on it - it was over and done, and we were on our way to the Writers Museum. Then I realised something. I had forgotten my hat on the bus!!! I was devastated for a while; I loved this hat, had had it for years - it was so convenient, as it was both warm, and I could put all my hair inside it - it had this kind of baggy top that fell on the back of my head, which was very "in" when I bought it. Therefore it was rather useful in hair-unfriendly weather, such as rain and/or wind. I had actually not used it for a long time, only recently dug it up, used it once and then sort of lost it. Thankfully I got it back, but then only to lose it on the bus! And this time, I knew I was never going to get it back. Which sucked.

Anyway. It was around noon when we got to the (kinda small and cosy) Dublin Writers Museum, and talking with the person in the foyer, Mrs Maciver found out that at 1:10 p.m. there would be a one-man-show about Irish writers in the museum! The show was called "The Writers Entertain!" and had the subheading "an entertainment which plays host to the dramatist, poets and wits of Ireland." During the hour before the show started Mrs Maciver recommended we go to the Hugh Lane art gallery, which is just a couple of houses down from the writers museum. The weather was nice, so some people chose to go off in the direction of O'Connell street, but I went inside and wandered around the halls, actually making it past the abstract modern art (a canvas painted blue, with the title "Untitled"?), which did scare off some of the others, and found the halls with the real paintings. I have to say, I do enjoy paintings and art that actually portray a picture more than that abstract modern thing.

The show about the Irish writers was really enjoyable. It was about an hour, in a room that was really like a typical double drawing room in an old house (don't know for sure which period, though), a part of the museum actually, and there were two rows of chairs against one of the walls, about 20-30 seats. Most of us sat in the back row, the front row occupied by other tourists, all of whom had, like us, only just stumbled upon this show. It was supposed to have more actors, but the rest of the theatre company was on tour, so it was just that one guy. He was very funny and had a very sarcastic, on times cynical, view (or at least presentation!) of the Irish writers, Ireland, and Dublin. After the show he asked the audience where they were from, what they were doing in Dublin, and had some interesting and/or funny things to say about that, and/or discuss it shortly before moving on to the next person. When he came to Mrs Maciver, he asked if she was with the group, and she told him we were there on an English trip, as we were studying James Joyce. He told us that all Irish people read the first chapter of Ulysses, for the sake of being patriotic, but then give up. He asked us if we'd been to the Guinness museum yet (though we didn't end up going there) or the Temple Bar area. We hadn't, yet.

Incidentally, our next stop, after a quick browse of the writers museum, we walked into town, along the river Liffey - incredibly beautiful by the way, especially in that magnificent weather! - was the Temple Bar area, where we were let loose to find food and whatever we wanted to do, as long as we'd be back at 4 p.m. The first place we went, of course, was the original Temple Bar pub, but as it was a sunny Sunday, and food-time, it was full. So we separated, and I ended up having a delicious and temporarily filling ice cream. Sadly, Gabriel, Douglas and I, who had opted for ice cream, were abandoned by the rest of "our" group. So we spent most of the time we had left looking for them, while admiring the beautiful houses and enjoying the weather. Also a bit bummed for having been abandoned. But we were cheered up massively by this really cute record store called Borderline Records, where I bought a Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds CD without even knowing what songs were on it - it was the double CD called Abattoir Blues/The Lyre of Orpheus; it only cost 10 Euros! A proper bargain. Turned out to be a brillant album, too!

When everybody had gathered in the appointed meeting place, we headed to the house in which Joyce's brilliant short story, often said to be one of the most beautiful pieces ever written in the English language, The Dead, is supposed to have taken place. Photos were taken, and we got more free time, with directions that we were to meet at 8 p.m. in the hotel foyer, to go to the Mongolian restaurant in Temple Bar where we had a dinner reservation for 9 p.m.

Hesther and I decided to browse some shops, as I needed a new bag and earrings, but for some reason Duncan, Gabriel and Douglas tagged along, even though they knew we were going to shop, and being girls, it was definitely going to take time! I found neither a bag nor earrings - not even stamps for the postcards I had bought to send to my grans in Iceland. So after about 1 1/2-2 hours of window shopping we took a bus back to the hotel, where the we did the same as about 24 hours earlier - hung out in each other's room. We were actually dead tired, and pretty much just relaxing.

I cannot deny that I was absolutely famished when we finally got to the Mongolian restaurant - wearing my casually fancy black dress of course - at 9. (I did remember to text Bjorgvin to remind him to tape Persuasion on STV for me! I had to borrow a mobile, though, as for some weird reason Orange doesn't work in Ireland.) For those of you who have never been to a Mongolian restaurant, here is how it goes. You help yourself to an entre - a bowl of salad, which you can make yourself, picking out veggies you like from a salad bar. When it's time for the main course, you get a bowl, in which you choose and mix your own food; you pick any kind of raw meat, fish or tofu if you're veggie, then vegetables, then spices, then herbs, and finally sauces. You can mix it any way you like, though there are suggestions for what goes well together. You then bring your bowl to the barbecuers - they have this huge plate, on which they put your food, and fry it! And you can actually watch as they cook it! It's so cool, and really fun, too. It's a buffet, so you can have as much as you want/can. And then they have disposable chopsticks for you to eat it with - though there's a fork as well, if you don't know how to use chopsticks. I decided that I was going to learn to use them, finally, and despite the fact that the directions on the wrapping were riddled with amusing typos, I actually managed it! It was rather cool.

I was incredibly tired by the time we got back to the hotel at about 11 p.m., and from the looks on their faces, most of the others were as well! Nevertheless, we stayed up rather late - some of us later than others. I for one went to bed at 1, kinda early compared to the rest, actually! I heard some stories the next morning, but I won't be talking about them here...

Gosh, this is so long. I apologise if you dozed off during any part of this detailed description of April Fools!

p.s. Same trouble with the paragraph separating as in the last post - sorry!